The amount of time it takes for a senior to find a long-term care place they can call home has jumped by 11 per cent, compared to the year previous, says this year’s B.C. Long-Term Care and Assisted Living Directory.
Current average wait time for all new admissions to find long-term care in B.C. is about 112 days, says the directory created by the Office of the Seniors Advocate.
When it comes to non-urgent admissions from the community, the average wait time is 233 days.
The 2024 directory is updated yearly and gives online information about the 431 publicly subsidized long-term care homes as well as assisted living facilities.
The directory provides details such as the number of funded care hours, the number of beds, room layout, food budget, medication use, use of physical restraints, licensing complaints, inspection reports and reportable incidents.
The current directory shows that last year, 2023/24, long-term care facilities were funded to allow an average of 3.43 hours, per day, of direct patient care, up slightly from last year. B.C.’s guidelines call for 3.36 hours of direct care, per resident.
“The new nationally recommended guideline is 4.1 hours of direct care, per resident, per day and we must ensure this updated standard is established in B.C. in order to meet the increasing care needs of residents,” said Dan Levitt, BC Seniors Advocate, in a news release. “This is the second year all long-term care facilities were funded to meet the provincial guideline of at least 3.36 hours of direct care staff, per resident, per day, which is good news.”
The directory shows that 28 percent of residents are taking anti-psychotic drugs, without a diagnosis of psychosis.
That rate is the same as last year but an increase from 17 per cent from five years ago.
There’s also a declining rate of flu vaccination in long-term care homes with 84 percent of residents having taken the shot in 2023/24, a decrease from 88 percent the year before.
When it comes to health-care workers, only 35 per cent had a flu vaccine, a decrease from 39 per cent the previous year.
It’s also the lowest rate since the flu vaccine policy was enacted in 2012, said the Office of the Seniors Advocate.
When it comes to getting into an assisted living home, the average wait time in the 2024 report is 132 days, a 13 percent increase from the year before.
“The directory helps seniors and their loved ones access and compare important information about long-term care and assisted living facilities so they can make decisions about the future,” said Levitt.
The Office of the Seniors Advocate is an independent office of the provincial government.
